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Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

You can not argue this fact.

Out of the general population of batters, there was a greater quantity of power spikes per 100 hitters during the juiced era than any other era listed. Every quote you have used to support your claim has some sort of qualifier. You used no such qualifier in your initial post.

I can argue that easily. Apparently you didn't understand what that graph was showing. That was a graph that did not account for the other changes in the game during that period, therefore it is not an accurate portrayal. The very next chart in the article was made using corrections for league and park effects and lo and behold it shows that power spikes were actually less common than they were from 1949 to 1985!

Remember that everyone agrees home runs were more common during that period, but the data show that factors other than steroids were the true reasons. Home runs were up equally among players believed to have used steroids and those believed not to have used steroids. The rising tide of home runs carried everyone along with it, which is another argument against the steroid power theory. The smaller parks, juiced baseballs, small strike zone, diluted pitching, strength training, better-engineered bats and all the other factors combined to drastically increase home runs across the league. These power-friendly factors turned what used to be 40 homer seasons in to 50 homer seasons. Later, when the pitching-friendly trends (cut fastball, spray charts, batter heat graphs, defensive shifting, defensive sabermetrics, rising pitch velocities etc) were introduced it caused power and scoring to decline even while steroid usage was increasing. The rise and fall of power and scoring has been explained thoroughly without needing to ascribe mythical powers to PEDs.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

I can argue that easily. Apparently you didn't understand what that graph was showing. That was a graph that did not account for the other changes in the game during that period, therefore it is not an accurate portrayal. The very next chart in the article was made using corrections for league and park effects and lo and behold it shows that power spikes were actually less common than they were from 1949 to 1985!

Remember that everyone agrees home runs were more common during that period, but the data show that factors other than steroids were the true reasons. Home runs were up equally among players believed to have used steroids and those believed not to have used steroids. The rising tide of home runs carried everyone along with it, which is another argument against the steroid power theory. The smaller parks, juiced baseballs, small strike zone, diluted pitching, strength training, better-engineered bats and all the other factors combined to drastically increase home runs across the league. These power-friendly factors turned what used to be 40 homer seasons in to 50 homer seasons. Later, when the pitching-friendly trends (cut fastball, spray charts, batter heat graphs, defensive shifting, defensive sabermetrics, rising pitch velocities etc) were introduced it caused power and scoring to decline even while steroid usage was increasing. The rise and fall of power and scoring has been explained thoroughly without needing to ascribe mythical powers to PEDs.

What I'm trying to get across is that there was a higher number of power spikes during the juiced era. No correlations. No adjustments. There were more. But everytime I say that Atomic responds with the fact that no there weren't. Am I crazy? Did we really not land on the moon too?

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

Actually the sport's pre-eminent authorities have all concluded that PEDs had negligible effects on the game. Baseball Prospectus is the foremost authority on the statistical evaluation of the sport and they have published numerous books and articles showing how and why scoring rose and then declined -- and they have said repeatedly that PEDs were a very small piece of the puzzle.

You can lean on numbers all you want, 65% of all statistics are made up.

Contrary to a lot of sabermatricians, the folks who know baseball best, are and will continue to be, the players themselves. When they quit using, I'll believe that PEDs are no longer giving them an edge.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

The politics of global warming aside, lets just assume it is occurring for this example.

Lets say this summer we have a record number of 90+ degree days. Atomic might argue that due to the new environment it isn't really a record as we have to adjust to previous years. (Yeah, that's silly)

But that doesn't change the fact that there was a record number of 90 plus days. Much like adjusting for park factors etc. doesn't change the fact that power spikes were more common during the juiced era.

Power spikes wer not more common during the juiced era. That is a falsehood.

Regarding global warming, everyone agrees that the Earth has warmed. The argument is over WHY the Earth has been warming. Some people believe it is due to man-made carbon dioxide emissions, while some people believe it is due to natural causes. Similarly, everyone agrees that home runs were up in the 90s. But some people blame that on steroids while other people have shown there are better explanations such as strength training, smaller ballparks, juiced baseballs, diluted pitching, denser bats and a new philosophy that preferred power over speed.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by Brisco

AtomicDumpling:

While he does argue the effect is small, I cannot find anywhere where Dr. Adair has ever said, implied or argued that PEDs had "no impact" on home run power in baseball. He is reported as having said the added bulk from PEDs would cause 2-3 more home runs per year. To quote "There is no question the drug use helps..."

More importantly, Adair's study of physics was limited to effect of added bulk resulting from steroids. He did not study the effect of steroids on speeding up the healing process nor their ability to extend careers. See Rick's excellent post above concerning the effects of this change.

Adair and others have written extensively that steroids had very minimal effects on home runs. Steroids have not been shown to improve the healing process either, on the contrary steroids are damaging to health and are much more likely to cause injuries than to heal them.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

It helps cyclists, it helps weight lifters, it helps swimmers, it helps football players, but baseball players it has no effect on!

They should put that on Ripley's Believe it or Not!

What evidence to you have that steroids or HGH helps weight lifters and swimmers and football players?

Olympic records and world records in weight-lifting, swimming and track & field have been broken year after year. Just this past Olympics many records were broken. If PEDs had been so helpful to athletes in the steroid era then why have their records been broken by clean athletes in recent years under stringent PED testing? If steroids were so effective those cheaters' records should still be in effect but they were broken long ago.

Blood doping in cycling is a bit different because they were injecting themselves with extra red-blood cells before races to improve their endurance. That was likely very effective, but it is not a steroid or PED.

Last edited by AtomicDumpling; 02-18-2013 at 04:24 PM.
Reason: spelling

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

The raw data ladies and gentlemen. Any dispute or claim to the contrary will include some sort of adjustment or qualifer. They were more common.

Again you are using a chart that is not adjusted for park and league factors. It is a basic statistical fact that there will be greater variation when numbers are higher. Since home runs were higher in the 90s due to non-steroid factors (strength training, small parks, juiced balls, dense bats, diluted pitching, small strike zone etc.) you would expect higher statistical variation due to basic probability. Once you adjust for the normal expected statistical variation it turns out that power spikes were actually LESS common than in prior eras.

Here is the correct chart:

As an example of the added variation you would expect when numbers are larger, one would expect to see more games decided by one run when the league is in a low scoring environment than in an era of higher scoring. In a year where the average team scores 3 runs per game you would expect to see more close games than you would when the average team scores 5 runs per game. That is not caused by a mysterious "spike" in lopsided games but rather just the expected normal statistical variation predicted by the mathematics of probability.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by kaldaniels

The raw data ladies and gentlemen. Any dispute or claim to the contrary will include some sort of adjustment or qualifer. They were more common.

What do the error bars look like? The graph suggests that a little more than an additional 1.5 players had a power spike during PEDs era versus the golden and balanced eras. I'm just wondering if there is an actual statistically significant difference.

We know alot of other factors were at play during '94-'04 as well. It just doesn't look like that big of an effect based upon the graph.

Also, on a related note, i'm not sure if the way park effects are normalized decreases noise or adds noise. Were not really there yet concerning park factors.

Last edited by jojo; 02-18-2013 at 04:19 PM.

"This isnít stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

Originally Posted by jojo

What do the error bars look like? The graph suggests that a little more than an additional 1.5 players had a power spike during PEDs era versus the golden and balanced eras. I'm just wondering if there is an actual statistically significant difference.

We know alot of other factors were at play during '94-'04 as well. It just doesn't look like that big of an effect based upon the graph.

Also, on a related note, i'm not sure if the way park effects are normalized decreases noise or adds noise. Were not really there yet concerning park factors.

The chart Kal Daniels presented was not adjusted for park factors nor for all the other factors that are known to have caused an increase in power league-wide.

Re: Ryan Braun going down?

C'mon man, you need "evidence" that taking steroids helps you play football better? Just use some common sense.

But if you do need evidence, here is some: James Harrison, Mark Gastineau, Bill Romanowski, on and on and on.

And steroids/HGH not helping weight-lifters? Was that said in jest?

Again, if steroids/HGH had helped weight lifters as much as you think it did then why were their records all broken after steroids and HGH were eliminated due to tough PED testing in the Olympics? Perhaps steroids were not nearly as effective as we were led to believe at the time.

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